^ ^"^^^coivF^^ 



A FEW WORDS =!:!*^ 



1882 



flOBT FEmVfflJl DHilffi: 

Let us not be unjust to the great Democratic party. For 
half a century, with short intervals, it has ruled the country, 
and it may legitimately boast of many illustrii)us names 
among its leaders, whose patriotism will always be unques- 
tioned, and whose public services command the gratitude 
of the people. That the mass of the party has been and 
still is composed of those who sincerely and earnestly 
desire the public welfare, no one who believes in republican . 
institutions can reasonably doubt. Yet the great Demo- 
cratic party now occupies a position in which its success 
threatens the gravest evils to the country at large, and to 
the State of Pennsylvania in particular. 

In the history of all political parties there are periods of 
decadence when new issues cause disruptions, and tlie great 
leaders withdraw, or are forced from their leadership. The 
management of the f)arty then passes into the hands of 
second or third class men, whose views are too contracted 
to a[)preciate the results of the measures which they advo- 
cate, or whose selfish recklessnees disregards the' ruin 
which "they may bring about, if only they can succeed in 
enjoying the advantages of power and place. Such men- 
trust solely to their skill in inflaming the passions of the 
multitude, and to the strength of the organization whose 
fealty they chxira as their own property, and not to the in- 
fjuence of reasun, or to the inirinsic merit of the policy 
which they advocate. ^It is not the least of the misfortunes 
of the country that the great Democratic party now occupies 
this humiliating position, and is under the control, for good 
or for evil, of such leaders. 

The times of Jackson and of Benton are passed. When 
the South madly rushed into rebellion, and all men felt that 
old party lines and issues were obsolete in the new and 
untried era bursting upon us, the Democracy of the North 
underwent a silent revolution. Its chiefs of honor and 
capacity felt that the demands of country were superior to 
those of JDarty, and that the death-struggle for national 
existence left no space for the ordinary contest for offioe. 
The questions of public policy on which had been based 
the diiferences of party during a time of peace and pros- 
perity were no longer living issues, and these men would 
not sacrifice their convictions of duty to the aspirations of 
political ambition. Such men as Douglas, Dix, llolt, Cass, 
Dickinson, Stanton and Butler, still believing themselves to 



'//<SHm 



2 ■ .r42 

be Democrats, and abandoning notbing of tbeir Democratic 
f:iitb, rallied to tbe cause of their country, and in serving, 
with sword and pen, that country through the administra- 
tion to which its interests had been confided, tliey felt that 
they were but obeying the behests of the noblest and purest 
Democracy. So was it with the long list, too tedious to 
enumerate, of patriotic men who had opposed the election 
of Mr. Lincoln, and who yet rushed to the defence of bis 
government as soon as it was threatened by the rebellion. 

Unfortunately, however, the long continufd neglect of 
their political duties by the people had for years been 
placing the management of parties in the hands of men less 
and less reputable. Tiie Democracy was never more 
thoroughly and efficiently organized, but its organization 
was controlled by those who had made politics a trade, 
wiiose livelihood was dependent on political success, and 
who could not rise above the considerations of selfish ambi- 
tion. Such men could not appreciate the motives which 
led their fellow Democrats to abandon expediency for 
patriotism, and to sacrifice their private interests for the 
public good. Controlling the machinery of the party, they 
therefore read out their former comrades and leaders, and 
released from the trammels which the loyalty of the latter 
would have imposed ; they have since then been using the 
honest masses of the Democracy with the single purpose of 
furthering their personal advancement, regardless of the ruin 
which may be entailed upon the country by the gratifica- 
tion of their unholy ambition. 

As citizens of Pennsylvania, we shall in a few weeks be 
called upon to decide upon which side our great common- 
wealth is to stand. We are to choose a Governor who will 
represent the second State in the Union during three years 
which must prove the most momentous in the history of 
the Republic. The voice of our State is too potential to be 
lightly disregarded, and it behooves her people to weigh 
well, how, and in what cause that voice is to be raised. It 
may prove, in truth, that our coming election may decide 
not only our own destinies, but those of the whole country ; 
and every voter as he casts his ballot, must be prepared to 
assume the dread responsibility, not of his own acts, but 
those of the men whom he will thus assist in elevating to 
power. It therefore becomes his first and highest duty to 
learn the objects and purposes of those who solicit bis 
sufirago. Let us then see what the leaders of the Demo- 
cratic party have published as their principles, and let us 
deduce the results which may be expected from their success. 

During the gloomy winter of 1860-01, while the Cotton 
States one by one were following the lead of South Caro- 
bna, and the Government, paralyzed and impotent, was 



3 

drifting, no one knew whither, we can all remember how 
the loyal men of all parties writhed under the inaction of 
the present, and shuddered at the possibilities of the future. 
It was durini^ this period of dread suspense tliat the party 
leaders in Pennsylvania, partially relieved from restraint 
by casting out their loyal comrades, adopted a line of policy 
to which they have ever since adhered, and to which they 
now propose to force the support of their loyal followers, 
however they may disguise their purposes, and endeavor 
to impose up»»Q the confidence whieh the honest masses of 
the people may repose in them. The key-note of disaffec- 
tion to the Union, and of affiliation with Southern rebels 
was sounded at a meeting of the party on the 17th of Jan- 
uary, 1861, where, among the resolutions adopted was the 
following, the authorship of which has since been defiantly 
avowed by Mr. William B. Reed. 

"Resolved, That in the deliberate judgment of the Demo- 
cracy of Philadelphia, and, so far as we know it, of Pennsyl- 
vania, the dissolution of the Union by the separation of the 
whole South — a result we shall most sincerely deplore, may 
release this Cotnmon wealth from the bonds which now 
connect' it with the confederacy, and would authorize and 
require its citizens, through a convention to be assembled 
for that purpose, to determine with whom their lot shall be 
cast; whether with the North and East, whose fanaticism 
has precipitated this misery upon us, or with our brethren 
of the South, whose wrongs we feel as our own, or whether 
Pennsylvania shall stand by herself, ready, when occasion 
oflers, to bind together the broken Union, and to resume 
her place of loyalty and devotion." 

It is necessary to recall the miserable anxieties of the 
dark months preceding. Sumter, when Slate after State was 
being tbrced through the cruel mockery of secession, to 
realize luUy the turpitude and treason of these pregnant 
sentences. They held out sympathy and promises of succor 
to the mad ambition of the Southern leaders who were 
dragooning their fellow-citizens into rebellion, and who never 
would have dared to plunge the country into strife but for 
such assurances of aid from kindred spirits in the North. 
They threatened the national government with the defec- 
tion of our noble old Commonwealth, which they more than 
insinuated would cast its decisive weight into the scale of 
rebellion ; and they proclaimed the dangerous and disor- 
ganizing dogma of" State-rights in terms which left nothing 
to be added by the most extreme of the nullifying and 
seceding school of politicasters. And for what was the 
time-honored Democratic party of Pennsylvania to be thus 
used as the efficient agent in destroying our institutions? 
For the meanest and most despicable personal purposes — 



in order that the trading politicians might have another 
chance at the loaves and fishes, by uniting with the " stern 
statesman" whom Mr. Reed so much admired, in preventing 
by force or fraud, mayhap by murder, the inauguration of 
a" constitutionally elected president, trusting that in the 
confusion, the peaceful North, averse to war, might submit 
to the domination of Mr. Breckenridge, or Mr. Davis, when 
the doughi'aced tools of treason would receive the rewards 
so richly earned by their dirty work. 

Very similar in character was a resolution which about 
the same time the subsequent chairman of the Democratic 
State Central Committee endeavored to force upon the con- 
vention of the party at Harrisburg, Loyal men, as yet, 
had, however, not been wholly excluded from places of 
trust by the Democracy, and the author of the treasonable 
attempt was obliged to pocket it under threat of being 
thrown out of the window if he ventured to insult the 
assemblage by parading his disloyal sentiments there. 

Party management did not long suffer such dangerous 
independence to interfere with it. The crucial test of the 
bombardment of Sumter came to try the stuff of which men 
were made. Avowedly undertaken to precipitate the 
Cotton States into rebellion, it temporarily paralyzed the 
Democratic party of the North, whose leaders shrank aghast 
before the glorious outburst of pitriotic devotion which 
filled the land. Democrats of all ranks, who felt that 
country was above party, hastened to offer their services to 
an administration whose election they had resisted ; and 
whether in the field, the cabinet, or the civil offices of gov- 
ernment, their various talents were placed in appropriate 
spheres of action with a forgetfulness of partizanship of 
which no Executive since the days of John Quincy Adams 
had given an example. The nation has profited largely by 
the eiibrts of these men, whose names will ever be hailed 
with gratitude by the people, but it likewise lost. Thus 
ridden of their loyal associates, the disloyal managers of the 
Democracy gained complete ascendency over the party, 
which they have since carefully confirmed and perpetuated 
by sternly casting out from communion all who gave 
evidence in any mnnner that they regarded the cause of 
the country as superior to that of the party. 

Thus Mr. Francis W. Hughes, who, in January, 1861, 
was forced to repress his instincts by the salutary fear of a 
broken neck, was able in July, 1862, as Chairman of the 
State Committee, to ventilate his views and to render the 
party responsible for them, in an address which carefully 
kept within the letter of the law punishing treason, while 
promulgating doctrines and sentiments which could only 
result in crippling the eflbrts of the country to suppress the 



rebellion whose apparent triumph then threatened its 
e:xistence. 

Then, in the darkest hour of our trouble, Mr. William B. 
Reed could once more crawl forth from the prudent ob- 
scurity to which the indignant loyalty of his countrymen bad 
condemned him, and could again, with the unctuous in- 
sinuation for which he is notorious, endeavor to render 
popular the dangerous doctrines of State Rights and Seces- 
sion, aitfully concealing the fearful abyss to which they 
would lend, by appeals to the most debasing motions of 
short-sighted self-interest. Disorganization and an'irchy 
were thus cunningly preached by the apostle of northern 
secessionism — assuming, with hardly a decent veil of regret, 
that the restoration of the Union was impossible, nor indeed, 
under existing possibilities, even desirable. 

" Maryland and Kentucky, after all, each for herself, will 
have to determine where her lot shall be cast, and what her 
pecuniary liability must be, whether for a'share of the 
Federal or of the Confederate debt, or whether to be ex- 
empt from both. What Maryland and Kentucky do, 
Pennsylvania and Ohio have a right to do. This settles 
the question of boundaries and nothing else will; and if the 
decision involves the abandonment of Wasliington and 
leaving it a monument of what was once the Capitol of a 
great Republic, be it so. . . . Hence it is that, even in 
this hour of gloom, I yet cling to the faith embodied in the 
Philadelphia resolutions of January, 1861; that possibly 
the independent or concurrent action of the Great Middle 
States, swayed by a sentiment of local fidelity, especially 
the action of Pennsylvania, may be invoked to save us, not 
from present disunion, for that cannot be averted, but from 
the anarchy which is at hand — closer than we imagine — or 
from some new form of consolidated government alien to 
our habits and education, which is sure to be conjured out 
of the seething cauldron of civil war. . . . Proud then 
may be the position, solemn the responsibility of . . . 
citizens of the great central sovereignties, New Jersey, 
(bravest and truest of them all) and Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois — if resisting the blandishments and 
threats of Executive authority, they shall assert by their 
votes loyalty to the Constitution in its strictest sense and 
closest obligation, and their determination to arrest the 
raging course of fanaticism, and a resolution that the tide 
of aggression now shall sweep over them no longer. The 

Middle States may save themselves if they will 

It may be the destiny of these great Middle States to speak, 
and, if need me, to act in self-defence and in maintenance 
of all that is left of Constitutional liberty in the frag- 
mentary and shattered Union which survives. They may 



6 

act together or thej may act separately. Within each of 
them is the perfect machinery of government ; and all that is 
v^antetl is an animating and practical spirit of local loyalty." 
(Wm. B. Reed's "Vindication," August ]4th, November 
5th, 1862.) 

Is it possible that a party which once was proud of the 
leadership of Andrew Jackson can fail to see under the 
glazing words of this seductive Belial the utterances of the 
same spirit which carried South Carolina and Mississippi 
into armed rebellion? The object is the same, and the 
damnable iteration which repeats the one idea in so many 
varying and courtly phrases shows how earnestly that 
object was obtained as the policy to be carried out by the 
party. Artful suggestions as to the facility of repudiation, 
inflammatory appeals to the "local loyalty" which has 
converted the South into an aceldama of remorse and 
despair, and cunning hints as to the ease with which Penn- 
sylvania could be wheeled into an attitude of armed resist- 
ance to the national authority, if only the Democratic party 
should obtain control of the State, leave no room for the 
reflection that such action could only result in plunging us 
into a state of desolation worse than that which now blasts 
like a simoon the fairest regions of the South. Worse 
indeed, for there, with insignificant exceptions, the people 
were at once crushed into acquiescence with the "local 
loyalty" of their leaders before the Government could sus- 
tain them in resistance, and they have had to endure only 
the horrors of invasion and the marauding of their own 
guerillas; while here any such attempt would be sternly 
resisted by one-half the population, backed up by the 
national forces, and we should at once be abandoned to all 
the horrors of anarchy and neighborhood war. 

You may say that these are but the opinions of an indi- 
vidual, holding no official position in the party and unable 
to commit the party to, his views. It is true, that confiding 
in the power of his practised rhetoric, Mr. Eeed may 
have ventured more openly than others to promulgate ideas 
requiring to be decently veiled lest their naked deformity 
might shock the honest masses of those whom he desired to 
use as his tools; yet how and where have the party leaders 
or organs ever disclaimed the responsibility or repudiated 
the odious dogmas which he thus enunciated with all 
the plausibility at his command? The organization which 
promptly ejected from its bosom all those who manifested 
by any overt act the slightest disposition to think for them- 
selves on the great questions of the day in opposition to the 
strictest party behests, — that organization still retains Mr. 
Eeed in full communion as one of its most trusted coun- 
sellors, and is eager to enjoy the advantages of his in- 



triguing skill, gained in both camps during the political 
contests of a quarter of a century. 

But it is not only by implic ation that these views have 
been adopted and endorsed by t'lose who speak for and in 
the name of the Democracy. Whenever there has been an 
occasion for promulgating the most exaggerated doctrines 
of the Calhoun school on the subject of State-rights, it has 
been done, and if an opening existed for the attempt to 
array the State in hostility to the General Government, it 
has been eagerly seized and made the most of. 

Scarcely anything could bo more autlioritative than the 
declarations mode at the formal inauguration of the "Demo- 
cratic Central Club," of Philadelphia, on the 8th of January, 
1863. Mr. Charles IngersoU was the spokesman put for- 
ward to give due weight to that solemnity, and though 
unlike Mr. Reed, the object held out in his address was the 
preservation of the Union, and not the arrangement of its 
permanent division, he strangely enough found the same 
means adequate to so diverse an end. 

"There is but one way of arriving at a solution of the 
question as to whether we are to have a speedy peace and 
union, and that is by conventions of the people. To effect 
this is not easy of accomplishment, because, throughout the 
North'there are many States in possession of the Republi- 
cans, and there is hardly any State in which the Democrats 
are wholly in power. In this State the Democrats have the 
Governor and the Senate against them with the House in 
their favor. Under these circumstances we should do what 
has frequently been resorted to in England; we should re- 
fuse the supplies. The speaker advocated this measure at 
some length as a means of instituting a State Convention. 
This would be followed by conventions throughout the 
Northern States. We should then be in a position to offer 
our terms and settle with the South this great question. 
Mr. IngersoU concluded amid prolonged applause." 

With what avidity the opportunity was seized to convert 
these doctrines of ultra State sovereignty into facts, and to 
precipitate a fatal conflict between the loc^il and National 
government, is amply exemplified by the proceedings con- 
sequent upon the arrest of Albert D. Boileau, publisher of 
the Evening Journal, for printing an editorial article, under- 
stood to be the production of Mr. Reed, which held up the 
character of Jefferson Davis for public admiration, and 
studiously endeavoured to make Mr. Lincoln an object of 
contempt in comparison. The arrest took place on the 28th 
of January, and at the meeting of councils next day, the 
Common branch passed, by a strickly party vote of 25 to 
18, the following, among other resolutions . 

" Resolved, Tuat in view of the facts, our Representatives 



8 

in the Legislature of Pennsylvania, are respectfully re- 
quested to take immediate action and adopt such measure^-, 
as in their judgment, will secure the indefeasible rights of 
our people, and prevent the kidnapping of our citizens and 
the illegal interference with and destruction of their pro- 
perty ; and also thnt they will use all honorable means to 
procure the passnge of resolutions calling upon the Execu- 
tive of this State to demand from the Federal Government 
a due respect for our sovereign rights, and to take such 
measures as will secure the immediate release of Albert D. 
Boileau from military confinement, and handing him over, 
if cause be shown, to the civil authorities of his own State 
and vicinity, to answer to any charge that may legally be 
prepared against him." 

Tlie Democratic branch of the State Assembly lost no 
time in responding to this appeal, and determined to make 
the most of the grievance which had so opportunely been 
afforded to the party. Among the resolutions adopted by 
it on tlie 30th of January, was the following: 

'^Resolved, That the House of Representatives of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do call upon the Governor, 
as the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth, bearing in 
his person the majesty of this State, to immediately repair 
to Washington, and demand of the General Government, 
the release of the said Albert D. Boileau, and that he be, 
returned to the State of which he is a citizen, to answer 
any charges to be made against him." 

Greatly to the disgust of those who were thus indus- 
triously turning this incident to their advantage, Mr. Boileau 
had no disposition to be made a martyr for their benefit, 
and a manly letter of explanation elfected his prompt release 
after two or three days detention. Still the marrowless 
bone was not abandoned by the hungry dogs. More than 
a month afterwards, the Central Club commenced a series 
of Saturday night addresses for the dissemination of Demo- 
cratic doctrine, and again, Mr. IngersoU was put forward to 
inaugurate the movement. True to the inspiration emana- 
ting from Mr. Reed, he selected for his subject the exhaust- 
less subject of "State Rights." What honest member of 
the party is there, who would not shudder at the bare idea 
of the fearful anarchy that would inevitably result from 
putting into practice such teachings as these ? 

"You ask me what State Rights would do for us? Sup- 
pose we had this State of Pennsylvania, had a Democrat 
for Governor, and Democratic majorities in the two Houses. 
Do you suppose we would permit the arrest of the editor 
of the Journal? the seizure of his newspaper ? If he could 
do nothing else, I suppose the Governor would seize as a 
hostage the Collector of the Port, or the Postmaster, or the 



9 

great Provost-Marslial himself, and liokl him until the 
citizen and his property were released. I don't mean to 
say that would he carrying out the Constitution of the 
United Slates, but I do say, that if a mere outrage is per- 
petrated, and Chief Justice Lowrie had just decided that 
the President had no more right to seize the JeHersonian 
than 3^ou or I, I see no other remedy than if the President 
were here to take him, or, if absent, to take him in the 
person of his representative." 

Then leaving this revolutionary device, he proceeded to 
develop the favorite scheme, equally revolutionary in its 
tendencies, of erecting the banner of revolt against the 
United States by means of State conventions. 

"It must be through the States if the Union is to be 
restored, and it is my firm belief, that if the large State of 
Pennsylvania was to-day as democratically equipped as the 
small State of New Jersey is, this Union would be in the 
"way of being restored in less than a month. I mean, that 
steps would be taken toward that end. Yet we do not sup- 
port the Government in what they call their war for the 
Union, but oppose it, and if they should not succeed in 
what appears to be their determined purpose, of breaking 
everything to pieces before the Democratic party can re- 
cover power, we shall, by means of conventions of the 
States, restore i\\e Union, and by the same operation esta- 
blish on a firm basis the rights of the States forever." 

So again, Mr. Reed, selected as another of the series of 
orators, delivered an address on the 28th of March, in which 
he dwelt upon the same idea. 

" If I have to choose between Union v/ithout States and 
States without Union, I have no difficulty in saying that I 
cling to my State. The instincts of the people know this 
already. The path which I desire to pursue to take me 
out of the miseries and oppressions upon us, is one which 
the Constitution prescribes — a popular convention — Na- 
tional, if it can be, and if not National, a State Convention. 
But I look to a convention as an end, not as a means ; for 
as a means, it is too slow. We shall bleed to death before 
a convention can be initiated. Still, it is a good ultimate 
result. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic House of Represen- 
tatives can demand, and in New York the Democratic Gover- 
nor can suggest and urge it; and I should like to see the party 
which will dare to reject it, and then venture to meet the 
test of popular suffrage; the alternative being the continu- 
ance of fruitless war, with anarchy and revolution following 
in its hideous train. Such conventions, emanating from and 
directly representing the people, would have adequate 
power. Tliey would be as the convention that made the 
Constitution. They would change, modify, abrogate ; and 



10 

if the institutions under which we live are to be changed or 
altered, in God's name, let it be done by voluntary consent, 
not by the bloody processes of war, rnnde by us or against 
ns; or, what is still worse, by the subtle influence of legis- 
lative or executive usurpation. Had the GToverninent never 
gone beyond the limits of consent; had it rejected, as did 
its founders, the heresy of coercion, as applied to any State 
or combination of States, it would have been far stronger 
in the elements of republican power, than it is now in all 
the panoply and parade of war." 

Mr. Wall, the late Democratic Senator of New Jersey, 
"bravest and truest of them all," was another of the orators 
selected to enlighten you as to the principles of your party. 
Listen to the doctrines of your political faith as expounded 
by him. May 9th, 1863. 

" The plan suggested some years ago by Mr. Yallandig- 
ham bears the stamp of his clear sagacity and statesmanlike 
forecast, — dividing the country into four large sections or 
masses, and requiring a majority of the representation from 
each to consent to a measure before it should become a law. 
Mr. Calhoun, notwithstanding the undeserved obloquy now 
attaching to his name, was to my mind the most honest 
and comprehensive statesman who grappled with national 
problems, and I make bold here to say that no wiser, purer 
patriotic statesman ever lived. It mny be that the South 
might be willing to return upon the adoption of some such 
system of reconstruction as this. If this plan of reconciliation 
and reconstruction fails, then a separation must be the finality." 

And this is the modern Gospel of the Jackson Democracy ! 
You who hold Jackson as the sternest, truest patriot since 
the Revolutionary fathers, are coolly asked to declare for a 
State Convention which shall "change, modify and abro- 
gate" the relations of Pennsylvania to the National Govern- 
ment. It was for less than this that Jackson to his dying 
day regretted that he had not hanged the arch -traitor Cal- 
houn, — and you insult his memory still further by quietly 
listening to a demagogue who proclaims Calhoun to have 
been the most honest, comprehensive, patriotic, wisest, 
purest statesman that our country, fruitful of great men, 
has produced. Whither are you tending when ypur defeat 
in a presidential election can thus induce you to abandon 
all the landmarks of the past? 

Perhaps Mr. Wall and Iris fellows may show us the 
direction of your progress when they, with more or less 
openness, carry out the teachings of Calhoun and Jefferson 
Davis, and stimulate you to armed resistance "to the Govern- 
ment, inflaming your passions by complaints of oppression, 
the falsity of which is best demonstrated by the freedom 



11 

with which tliey are allowed to spout their incendiary har- 
rangues. Thus Mr. Wall proceeds, — 

" I do not hesitate to declare in the ears of the Administra- 
tion, and of the Loyal Leagues its allies, that if their war 
upon the personal liberty of the subject, in defiance of the 
guarantees of the Constitution, goes on, the time may come 
■when 'forbearance ceases to be a virtue' and ' resistancid 
to tyrants becomes obedience to God.' Let our cry be, in 
the fearful contest which is approaching, ' We will' ask for 
nothing but what is right; we will submit to nothing that 
is wrong,' — and then, if our cry is unheeded, let us pray 
that some Maccabeus shall arise, who will assert the honor 
of the ancient faith, and defend the temple of his forefathers, 
with as ardent and determined a spirit as that which ac- 
tuated these innovators to destroy the monuments of the 
piety, patriotism and glory of our fathers." 

Mr. George Northrop, another of the men who are en- 
deavoring to rise from obscurity into prominence by luring 
you to destruction, declared at the Vallandighara meeting, 
June 1st, 1S63. 

"You have got to carry the lessons v/hich you have thus 
recently learned, quietly perhaps, but earnestly, into your 
hearts; but you must be prepared at all times to assert 
your constitutional rights. It is for this that the world has 
striven through long ages. It is the old struggle on the 
.part of the people against the tyranny of tliose in authority." 

How you are to assert the "constituti->nal rights" which 
these men assume to have been infringed, and how you are 
to carry on the struggle against tyranny may be gathered 
from a speech delivered before the Central Club by Mr. 
Edward Ingersoll, so late as June 13th, when Lee was 
knocking at the gates of Pennsylvania, and all true patriots 
were consulting how they could best support our nationality, 
then apparently threatened with destruction. Applauding 
and defending the rebellion of the South, Mr. Ingersoll 
plainly urges you to follow in the same path : 

" Until the spirit of disunion and hatred, which is Aboli- 
tionism, is put down in our midst, government, which rdone 
can give us peace, is impossible. Don't trouble yourselves 
about the disunion spirit in the South, don't trouble your- 
selves about the Southern Confederacy, take the beam out 
of your own eye; we will find political occupation enough 
at home for some time to come. When the F'ederal Ad- 
ministration ceases to be a Government and represents 
nothing but the instinct of hatred and destruction against 
one section of our country, that se'btion wisely and naturally 
concentrates the whole vigor of its nature in resistance. 
Government gone mad can accomplish nothing but ruin. 
Can the Democratic people of America protect and defend 



12 

the institutions of their country against the revolutionary 
assaults of Abolitionism? Aye, sirs, and whether the ap- 
peal be to the ballot-box or the hideous but not less popu- 
lar appeal to the cartridge box be forced upon the people, I 
have not a particle of doubt of the result. We claim, fellow- 
citizens, to be conservative, not revolutionary. But does 
conservatism consist in yielding your" precious popular 
rights, one by one, to revolutionary assault, or in standing 
bv and defending them? Maintain your laws, peaceably 
if you can, forcibly if you must. Your Constitution pro- 
vides that 'tlie rights of tlje people to keep and bear arms 
shall not be infringed.' That clause has full meaning, and 
was not provided for you without anxious thought for the 
future, founded on a knowledge of the past!'' 

These, Democrats of Pennsylvania, are the sentiments, 
this is the jjolicy proclaimed by those in whose hands you 
are, and your vote in October will be your verdict of ap- 
proval or disapproval of both sentiments and policy. Place 
these men in power and they will be bound to carry out 
these views to their legitimate consequences, for has not 
Mr. Reed assumed in his speech of March 28th, that you are 
even more eager than your leaders for the struggle which 
they propose to inaugurate? "And in where is this senti- 
ment stronger or surer than here amid this great con- 
stituency — the Democracy of Pennsylvania. That constit- 
uency is far, very far, ahead of its leaders, its , orators, its 
reputed organs." 

It were useless to multiply, as could easily be done, the 
proofs of the treasonable and disorganizing nature of that 
"local loyalty" to which alone your leaders are willing to 
render allegiance. But it is not only in Pennsylvania that 
the Democratic party has thus arrayed itself in the cast-off 
clothing of the South, and has pledged itself to carry out the 
doctrines of States Rights to their necessary conclusions of 
armed resistance to the National authority and consequent 
anarchy and endless confusion. To what such doctrines 
lead in the hands of these reckless demagogues is amply 
attested by the recent fearfid riots in New York, and while 
the prisons are filling with the " noble hearted friends" of 
Governor Seymour, the wretches who speculated upon the 
blind passions of the multitudes are safely surveying the 
ruin they have wrought and are plotting new disturbances. 
The " New York States Rights Association" openly declares, 
in language better fitted for the ears of South Carolinians 
than for those of loyal citizens, that — 

" Whenever the sovereignty of the State is invaded, and 
the rights essential to its existence are usurped, it is the 
duty of the Governor to take official, prompt and public 
notice of the wrong and danger, and forthwith pre2)are to 



13 

maintain its sovereighty, if need be, with all the power of 
the State." 

And not only does the Association thus proclaim the 
sacred right of private revolution, but it proceeds at once 
to decide as to the invasion of the rights thus declared. 
What Government is possible, if irresponsible bodies or 
Governors can thus erect the banner of revolt whenever 
they may choose to assert that the sovereignty of a State 
has been infringed ? 

"The act commonly called the 'Conscript Act,' does 
invade the sovereignty of jurisdiction of this State and 
usurp rights essential to its existence. We therefore call 
upon the Governor to mnintain and defend the sovereignty 
and jurisdiction of the State, and to protect the people in 
their rights and liberties from this most odious and intoler- 
able oppression." 

If space permitted, it would be easy, from the utterances 
of the party in Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
and other States, to multiply proofs of the widely-extended 
degeneracy of the Democracy, and to show that it is pledged 
to resort to any extremity in resisting the constituted autho- 
rities of th-e -nation. Yet your leaders endeavor to persuade 
you that you are the victims of'a despotism in a land where, 
amid the throes of civil war, these doctrines can be thus 
openly and safely preached ! 

Some of your leaders, indeed, profess to be War Demo- 
crats, but it is not observable that they hesitate to co-ope- 
rate with their peace brethren, who openly proclaim coercion 
to be a heresy, and who plead for armistice, peace and sepa- 
ration. In their blind eagerness to climb into ^ower over 
the ruins of the Government, all minor differences as to 
peace and war sink into insignificance, and the real result 
of your success under their guidance is well understood in 
the Confederacy. It is the hope alone that you will be able 
to employ the Government at home, that now stimulates the 
South in a desperate eflbrt to repair its broken fortunes; 
and the prolongation of the war is directly dependent upon 
the victory which you anticijiate at the polls. Not a fort- 
night since, the Richmond Whig distinctly admitted that 
apart from delusive anticipations of victories, their hope of 
speedy success in achieving independence could be realized 
in only two ways: by a French protectorate, or by the suc- 
cess of the Democratic party of the North. If the legal 
definition of treason be rendering aid and comfort to the 
enemy, how can you, if you support these men at the polls, 
escape the charge of treason — treason to your country, to 
your State, and to yourselves — when the last hope of the 
rebellion is based upon your fidelity to " local loyalty ?" 
Can a man who calls himself a " War Democrat" read, with- 



14 

out crimsoning with shame, that, amid its fearful military 
reverses, the South esteems its prospect of independence 
brighter than ever, because the Democratic party of the 
North is gathering strength and threatens to deprive the 
administration of power? Listen to one of the most intel- 
ligent of the renegades, Lieutenant Maury, when, under 
date of August 17tii, he argues, in the London Times^ that, 
" so far from the prospects of the South looking ' blue,' they 
never were more bright;" assuming, like Mt. Reed, that 
restoration of the Union is impossible, and that the war 
cannot be decided by the sword. He proceeds : 

" Other agents have to be called into play. What are 
they ? Let us inquire. They are divisions in the camp of 
tlie enemy, dissensions among the people of the North. 
There is already a peace party there. All the embarrass- 
ments with which that party can surround Mr. Lincoln, and 
all the difficulties that it can throw in the way of the war 
party in the North, operate directly as so much aid and 
comfort to the South. 

"As an offset, then, against the tide of military reverses 
which in the first weeks of July ran so strong against the 
South, and from which our friends in England seem not to 
have recovered, let us look to those agencies which are to 
end the war, and inquire what progress has been made on 
the road to peace, and consequently in our favor, notwith- 
standing the military reverses. 

"Notwithstanding these, the war is becoming more and 
more unpopular in the North. In pr.oof of fhis, T point to 
the conduct of Pennsylvanians during Lee's invasion of 
that State, t» the riots in New York, to the organized resist- 
ance to the war in Ohio, and to other circumstances with 
which the English public has been made acquainted by the 
newspaper press. 

" New York is threatening armed resistance to the Fed- 
eral Government. New York is hecoming the champion of 
States-rights in the North, and to that extent is talcing Soutliern 
ground. Mr. Lincoln has not only judged it expedient to 
unmuzzle the press in New York, and deemed it prudent 
to give vent to free speech there, but he is evidently afraid 
to enforce the conscription in the Empire State. 

" Vallandigham waits and watches over the border, 
pledged, if elected Governor of the State of Ohio, to array 
it against Lincoln and the war, and to go for peace. What 
the result of the election there will be, I cannot tell; but 
the canvass is going on, and we know that opposition to 
Lincoln and his war party is growing more and more pop- 
ular every day, and throughout the entire North. 

" Why, but for this growing hostility to Lincoln and the 
war, pat Kentucky under martial law at this late date at 



15 

all? Simply because of the growing activity ami increas- 
ing energy of those influences which are at work. in the 
cause of peace, and therefore on the side of the sword of 
the South. These influences are doing more toward bring- 
ing the war to an end than all the battles that have been 
fought since the war began have done. 

" Never were the chances of the South brighter. All that 
we have to do is to maintain the defensive, watch our 
chances and strike whenever tiiere is an opportunity for a 
good stroke with the sword or with the pen." 

And thus your promised successes are made the basis 
of bolstering up the cotton bonds in England, and enabling 
the Confederacy to buy of British ship-builders the Iron- 
clads with which they hope to destroy our commerce and 
lay waste our sea ports. 

Fellow-citizens, pause and weigh what is meant by your 
leader's utterances, for your children's children will have 
cause to rue your action if you now permit yourselves to be 
misled by these Machiavellian sophistries. Ponder well 
the purport of these "State Conventions," this "seizing the 
President or his representative," this "appeal to the cart- 
ridge box," which roll so glibly from your leader's lips and 
which they so cheerl\illy announce as their object so soon 
as you shall have phaced them in power over you. Ask 
yourselves what is to be effected by the State Convention 
which they proclaim as the panacea for all our woes, and as 
an end, if too late to be a means. It is simply armed revo- 
lution in a simple guise. Your first allegiance under the 
Constitution. is due to the National authority. The laws of 
Congress are " the supreme law of the land ; and the Judges 
in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the 
Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
standing;" and the President, in his oath of office, is sworn 
to maintain them. When the leaders of the South under- 
took to precipitate these States into rebellion. State Con- 
ventions were the facile instruments to which they resorted, 
and their success seems to encourage imitation. By peace- 
ble and loyal means no State Convention can eliect any 
thing in opposition to the general Government, or can alter 
the relations of Pennsylvania to the Union or to her neigh- 
bors. It is essentially, for such a purpose, a revolutionary 
expedient, and can mean nothing but an appeal to arms. 
Your leaders plainly tell you that they intend by its means 
to over-ride the National authority. Can you imagine that 
a nation which, through two long years of dreary war, has 
made such sacrifices to vindicate its nationality, has now, in 
the hour of expectant triumph, sunk so low as to basely 
surrender all that for which it has struggled at the bidding 
of a few disappointed politicians? Ask yourselves what is 



16 liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

012 029 012 

to be the result if every citizen of Pennsylvania is called, 
upon to elect between the allegiance which he owes to the 
United States and that which is due to his State, when 
your leaders shall have succeeded in placing them in a 
position of implacable hostility. Even without the over- 
mastering force of the nation, are there not enough Penn- 
sylvaniaiis rising superior to " local loyalty" to accept the 
guage which you will have thrown down and to make our 
streets and valleys red with blood ? Be warned, we beseech 
vou, in time. Honest men and true you are; let not these 
political tricksters, with their shallow devices, lure you 
unsuspectingly into the path which has made Virginia 
and Mississippi an abomination of desolation. 

We would not so wrong the Democratic party which 
erewhile put to shame Calhoun and his nullifying con- 
spirators, as to suppose that had it been in power when an 
equally causeless rebellion, whether at the North or South, 
clutched at the nation's throat,it would not havesternly wield- 
ed the Avbole power of the nation to crush out treason at any 
cost. The history of the country does not show that the 
Democracy has been accustomed to deal tenderly with 
traitors, or to t^hrink from whatever means were necessary 
to save the Republic. The highest maxim of statesman- 
ship, which was engraved upon the Twelve Tables of Rome 
— Salus populi supPvEMA lex — was understood and acted 
upon by Jefi'erson and Madison and Jackson. Even in 
these degenerate days, your party, entrusted with the ad- 
ministration of the Union, would not have tamely stood by 
and seen it torn shred from shred, while there was a kernel 
of powder or an ounce of lead to strike a rebel down. Can, 
then, the lust of power and the thirst for public plunder 
be so strong that j^our leaders oppose every measure for 
the suppression of the rebellion, and lose no opportunity 
to embarrass a Government staggering under a task un- 
paralleled in history, merely because a few hundred . 
aspirants have been defeated in a struggle for office? To 
this it resolves itself at last. The cautse in which we are 
engaged is yours as much as ours. To all of us in common 
belong the advantages of triumph, to all of us the disasters 
of defeat. You have no part in the selfish aims and petty 
ambitions of the disappointed demagogues who are en- 
deavoring to allure you to ruin. Cast them behind you 
with an honest and a manly fervor. Leave them to enjoy 
their "local loyalty" and their dark and sinuous intrigues, 
while 3'ou step forward on the broad and solid platform of 
a common country, stretching in peace from the Atlantic 
to the Pacilic, and respected among the nations as the 
irresistible exponent of true Democracy. 



